Abbie Has Responded To The Backlash Over Her Relationship Hard Launch With Konrad
The Bachelorette may be done and dusted for another year, but that doesn’t mean the drama is over.
During finale week, Abbie Chatfield hard launched her new boyfriend on her Instagram: Konrad Bien-Stephens, who also happened to be Brooke Blurton’s third runner-up. In the hours after Abbie’s post, fans noticed that Brooke no longer followed Abbie on Instagram, which was especially odd as she starred as one of Brooke’s closest friends in The Bachelorette finale.
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It’s not difficult to see what the correlation between Abbie announcing her relationship in finale week and Brooke unfollowing Abbie could mean — Abbie stole Brooke’s moment and The Bachelorette star ain’t happy about it. When asked about the sudden unfollowing in an interview with Punkee, Brooke did not deny it but did say that it “wasn’t intentional”.
So far, Abbie has stayed silent on the apparent unfollowing and the backlash she’s faced from the timing of her post about dating Konrad. However, overnight she finally addressed a critic who called the post a “PR stunt”, replying sarcastically “Thank you. I desperately needed the PR at the height of my career and as we know I LOVE talking about people I’m dating and uploading photos of them,” she wrote.
“Not like this was a huge decision to be public that went against PR advice.”
In the days since she hard launched Konrad on her Instagram, The Bachelorette contestant has popped up all over her Instagram stories, and Abbie has confirmed he will appear on her It’s A Lot podcast.
Last week, the host of So Dramatic! Megan Pustetto commented on a post on podcast’s page that “I mean, she could have waited until Monday, surely?” — referring to the timing of Abbie’s post, which came just as Brooke was about to announce her winner. The comment was liked by 2020 winner of The Bachelor Irina Srbinovska and former contestant Alisha Aitken-Radburn.
Brooke still does not follow Abbie on Instagram, while Abbie still follows Brooke.